You think you're so cool here on the internet talking about all your guns. Maybe you even spout some "anti-guvment" talk in a chat room thinking that you are safe and sound.

GUESS AGAIN!

You are aware that it was the Military, not Al Gore, who developed the internet. At one time, it was called DARPANET or ARPANET.

You'd kind think that people like NSA and GCHQ might have an "in" on how to track people on it.

But, I've been wanting to write a piece about CCTV and how that is probably a far more effective method of stopping crime than a bunch of idiots carrying handguns. And not all those CCTV units belong to "THE STATE".

No, if you want to come to my house, you will walk past at least 3 CCTV cameras before the one that will send your image to a remote server that is focused on MY DOOR.

And NONE of them belong to the Guvment.

But what got me to write this is something from Naomi Wolf in the Guardian:

A software
engineer in my Facebook community wrote recently about his outrage that
when he visited Disneyland, and went on a ride, the theme park offered
him the photo of himself and his girlfriend to buy – with his credit
card information already linked to it. He noted that he had never
entered his name or information into anything at the theme park, or
indicated that he wanted a photo, or alerted the humans at the ride to
who he and his girlfriend were – so, he said, based on his professional
experience, the system had to be using facial recognition technology. He
had never signed an agreement allowing them to do so, and he declared
that this use was illegal. He also claimed that Disney had recently
shared data from facial-recognition technology with the United States military.

Fast
forward: after the Occupy crackdowns, I noted that odd-looking CCTVs
had started to appear, attached to lampposts, in public venues in
Manhattan where the small but unbowed remnants of Occupy congregated:
there was one in Union Square, right in front of their encampment. I reported here
on my experience of witnessing a white van marked "Indiana Energy" that
was lifting workers up to the lampposts all around Union Square, and
installing a type of camera. When I asked the workers what was happening
– and why an Indiana company was dealing with New York City civic infrastructure, which would certainly raise questions – I was told: "I'm a contractor. Talk to ConEd."

I
then noticed, some months later, that these bizarre camera/lights had
been installed not only all around Union Square but also around
Washington Square Park. I posted a photo I took of them, and asked:
"What is this?" Commentators who had lived in China said that they were
the same camera/streetlight combinations that are mounted around public
places in China. These are enabled for facial recognition technology,
which allows police to watch video that is tagged to individuals, in
real time. When too many people congregate, they can be dispersed and
intimidated simply by the risk of being identified – before dissent can
coalesce. (Another of my Facebook commentators said that such lamppost
cameras had been installed in Michigan, and that they barked "Obey", at
pedestrians. This, too, sounded highly implausible – until this week in
Richmond, British Columbia, near the Vancouver airport, when I was
startled as the lamppost in the intersection started talking to me – in
this case, instructing me on how to cross (as though I were blind or
partially sighted).

The funny bit to me is that you lot are complaining up and down about your "gunz" and "statism"; one the other hand, here is a serious bit of intrusion on your privacy, yet you lot are SILENT.

Is it because it's not coming from the "State", but private enterprise?

Or is it because your masters haven't told you that you need to say anything about it?

I'm hearing you sing:

We are poor little lambsWho have lost our way.Baa! Baa! Baa!We are little black sheepWho have gone astray.Baa! Baa! Baa!

Let's be clear: Yesterday's shooting
of a security guard at the Family Research Council's offices in
Washington, D.C., evidently motivated by the shooter's anger over the
FRC's ongoing campaign against the LGBT community, was an atrocity that
harmed the cause the shooter espoused. After all, the chief reason
groups are called out as "hate groups" is that the rhetoric they purvey
is so toxic that often it justifies and inspires acts of violence
against vulnerable minorities. To respond to that with an equally insane
act of violence is a betrayal.

What's your opinion? Did you see anything like lethal threat in that video? This is the same thing that happens in many of the supposed DGUs we hear about. The only lethal threat is in the mind of the trigger-happy gun owner.

North Las Vegas Detectives arrested Carmen Gustin of North Las Vegas on
charges stemming from a shooting that occurred in her home on Aug. 9
that left her 10-year-old sun in critical condition with an allegedly
self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head

Gustin, 38, was booked
into the Clark County Detention Center on charges of child abuse with
substantial bodily harm, two counts of child neglect, and one count of
destroying evidence.

Authorities
say the boy appears to have found a handgun in the house and shot
himself Aug. 9 while he was home alone with a 3-year-old brother.

Charging documents accuse
38-year-old Gustin of initially telling police her son's head injury
came from a fall. They say she also took the gun her son had used and
hid it in a dresser drawer.

It's not the amazing negligence of leaving a gun around kids that gets people locked up. It's lying to the police about it. That really pisses them off.

Washington, DC—Yesterday’s
shooting at the Family Research Council headquarters in Washington,
D.C. reminds us that the use of political violence—to whatever end—is
always, unequivocally wrong. It is extremely fortunate that no one was
killed or critically wounded during this incident, thanks to the heroic
actions of security guard Leo Johnson.

Our Founders built a system of government under the Constitution where
citizens—through the power of their ideas—make policy decisions in a
framework that requires negotiation and compromise. They explicitly
rejected the notion that “
the guys with the guns make the rules,”
recognizing that such a “might makes right” approach can only lead to
chaos and anarchy. When our Founders observed such anarchy during armed
uprisings like Shays’ Rebellion, it hardened their resolve to draft and
ratify a Constitution that would obviate the need for political
violence.

We must continue to approach the political process peacefully, as
equals. Let us prevail by the character of our ideas and the force of
our arguments, not by the barrel of a gun. We strongly condemn any and
all acts of political violence. All Americans of conscience should do
the same.

Raising the issue of media violence feels like indulging in some
ancient controversy from the 1970s, and that's too bad. I think we need
to foreground the pop-cultural side of the killings, specifically the
ways that Hollywood has drifted in recent years toward sanctifying
firearms as the most powerful means of self-validation in action films,
the go-to remedy for most wrongs, real and imagined, the universal
vehicle of catharsis, cleansing, rectification.

Face it, the most
dangerous promoter of gun violence in contemporary society isn't the
gunmaker or the National Rifle Association, it's Hollywood. Movies are
how guns are exhibited, marketed and sold. When did you last see an
advertisement from Glock or Ruger or Smith & Wesson? Unless you read
a specialty magazine, never.

That's because the market for
firearms isn't widened and regenerated through consumer advertising.
That happens through lurid, breathtaking portrayals of gun violence,
lovingly depicted in harrowing detail, as plot elements indispensable to
the contemporary action film.

What do you think? There's certainly something to what he says, but what's the point? Is it to take our focus off the NRA and gun manufacturers?

Let's say both Holywood and the NRA/gun manufacturers are heavily invested in the proliferation of gun culture and violence. It's not true, Hollywood is involved in fantasy violence while the NRA/gun manufacturers are interested in the real thing, but for argument sake let's say they both make lots of money by promoting guns and gun violence.

Which one would be easier to control through legislation? Hollywood would cry the 1st Amendment, the others would cry the 2nd. Which Amendment do you think more readily admits exceptions? The 1A has that famous "crying fire in a crowded theater" exception. The 2A has so many exceptions and restrictions it's hard to count them all. Justice Scalia clearly stated in his Heller decision that "reasonable restrictions" are allowed.

Obviously, the NRA and the gun manufacturers need to be contained through gun control legislation. No one wants to do anything about Hollywood films that depict violence. But, most people do what something done about the gun availability and consequent problems.

A 14-year-old shot his younger brother at their East Bexar County
home Thursday afternoon, apparently by accident, officials said.

Bexar County sheriff's Detective Louis Antu
said the boys were alone at the home about a mile north of U.S. 87 on
Stuart Road about 2 p.m. when the teen-ager shot his 12-year-old brother
in the chest with a .22-caliber firearm.

Authorities said they believe the firearm belonged to the boys'
mother, who was at work. Antu said the shooting is being handled as
accidental, and no one had been charged as of Thursday afternoon.

He said deputies hadn't determined where the weapon was before the boy took it or whether he loaded it himself.

Antu said parents should keep firearms unloaded and inaccessible to children.

In Texas, that's the extent of the consequences to negligent parents whose kids get hurt or killed. They're told by the police what they "should" do. No one likes to be told what to do. It really hurts.

What's your opinion? Mine is, I repeat, whenever a kid gets ahold of a gun, an adult gun owner should be held responsible. The consequences should be something stronger than a mild verbal reprimand.

FBI officials said
Thursday that the shooting of a security guard at the Family Research
Council's D.C. headquarters on Wednesday may fall in the "hate crime/terrorism nexus," depending on the shooter's motive.

FRC is a socially conservative
Christian advocacy organization that opposes gay marriage and abortion,
among its other causes. In an interview on Fox News Thursday, FRC
President Tony Perkins said he thought the attack should be classified
as "terrorism," but some other commentators have suggested that the
shooting may also qualify as a hate crime, if it can be proven that the
attacker was targeting the group's religious beliefs.

Suspected shooter Floyd Lee
Corkins II "has strong opinions with respect to those he believes do not
treat homosexuals in a fair manner," according to his parents, and
Corkins is said to have yelled that he did not like FRC's politics
before opening fire. He was also found with a backpack that contained
more than a dozen Chick-Fil-a sandwiches.

This is the story about which Fat White Man quipped, "Why are Lefties so violent."

Well, I guess on the surface that's a fair question. What do you think? Does this case prove that the lunatic gun maniacs are not limited to the Right side of the political spectrum? Or is this the exception that proves the rule?

There's no denying that by targeting a notorious right-wing organization one probably belongs to the Left, but what about those Chick-Fil-A sandwiches in his backpack? What could that be all about? It sounds to me like Floyd was just another mixed up gun owner.

No, I'm afraid it's not as simple as Left vs. Right. There are plenty of fanatical gun owners who hold certain "Lefty" ideals. Some of them feel sympathetic towards homosexual cases, I suppose some of them are gay themselves.

No, the distinction when it comes to gun ownership is not whether a person is left-leaning or right-leaning politically, but whether they are of sound mind and responsible. Guys who fail in those categories and believe the gun is the answer to whatever problem they have are a danger. And as much as the rest of the gun-loving community tries to deny it, they are too many.

Timothy Courtois' family had been worried about him for weeks. They
repeatedly told police in Biddeford, Maine, that the 49-year-old was off
his meds for bipolar disorder. And police were also told he had guns.
But still, because he wasn't doing anything that rose to the legal
definition of imminent threat, police said their hands were tied.

"We're
very limited — very, very limited to what we can do," says Biddeford
Police Deputy Chief JoAnne Fisk. "Just because somebody has a hunch, we
will investigate it. But everybody has rights, and you have the right to
bear arms in this country."

It was both
frustrating and a relief to police and the family when Courtois was
finally arrested for speeding down the highway to what could have been a
tragedy. Police found an AK-47, handguns and several boxes of
ammunition in Courtois' car as he drove toward New Hampshire, he
reportedly told police, to shoot a former employer.

This little story, which is being repeated in every city all over the country, perfectly illustrates a serious dilemma we're facing.

All people, including gun owners, have the right to privacy and should be able to conduct their affairs without outside interference. This is basic. But, when the public safety is at risk, something needs to be done. What's the solution?

In my opinion, the criterion which is generally used now is not sufficient, It says if a person has "ever been deemed by a judge to be mentally incompetent or involuntarily committed," only then would they lose their right to own guns. Even if the reporting of such cases were 100%, which it is not, that would be setting the bar too high. We have daily examples of people who qualify under this lenient ruling and yet wreak havoc with their guns.

The only way I can see to address this problem would require a major overhaul of our gun control policy and attitudes. It would require licensing of gun owners with a "may issue" stipulation by the local authorities. When an obvious situation is developing, the license can be suspended and guns forfeited. Many lives would be saved.

Police spent nearly 26 percent of the
year's law enforcement budget for overtime pay in responding to the July
20 mass shooting in a movie theater.

The city so far has spent
$462,600 on overtime costs for police officers and civilian employees
following the midnight movie killings at the Century Aurora 16 theater
and has applied for a federal grant to help cover the costs. The costs
include investigators and responders on the morning of the shooting,
security at a large vigil held later and protection for visiting
dignitaries.

The article goes on to explain that police overtime, which all happens AFTER the shooting is over is just the tip of the iceberg. The lawyers get into the act too.

CU has agreed to pay $505 an hour for a
single lawyer to review what officials there knew about Holmes and
when they knew it. As that lawyer brings in associates and paralegals
from his firm, Perkins Coie, they will be billed to the university at
$245 an hour or more and $205 an hour, respectively, according to an
agreement signed July 30.

Sadly, we're still talking about a small fraction of the cost. Some of the victims had inadequate or no medical coverage. These costs must be added to the toll.

Wouldn't an ounce of prevention be worth a pound of cure in this case? Isn't this a good argument for proper gun control which would prevent some of these major incidents?

The latest crime report for July shows assaults with a weapon are up
more than 14 percent from a year ago, underscoring what Chief Dan Isom
says is a problem of more guns on the street.

“Many people have talked about the gun show loophole, which allows
people to buy guns and basically there’s absolutely no background
check,” Isom said, “So, just the way the laws are structured today,
there is a proliferation of guns in our community.”

Isom says police chiefs from around the country are complaining about
lax gun laws, and Mayor Francis Slay, a member of the police board,
says gun proliferation was also a hot topic at the recent U.S.
Conference of Mayors.

It often seem like everyone is in agreement about gun availability except the fringe-lunatics who blindly support gun-rights above all else.

Gun availability is a major factor in crime. Why is that so difficult for some people to understand?

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Here's another one for you: one of those super-responsible CCW holders
we're always hearing about took his gun to the movies with him (no doubt
to save us all from the next movie theater mass shooting). Instead, his
gun fell to the floor and He accidentally shot himself in the ass.

Stupid gun loons.

I couldn't agree more.

A Nevada movie theater patron sustained a buttock injury last night when the handgun he was carrying in his pocket accidentally went off after falling to the floor.

The
56-year-old, who has a permit to carry a concealed weapon, proceeded to
apologize to other moviegoers in his immediate vicinity and exit the
theater. Police tracked him down to a Reno hospital; his injury was not
considered life-threatening.

Police say they will hand off the case to the Sparks City Attorney's Office, which may decide to bring charges against the man.

A 20-year-old woman who allegedly opened fire in a grocery store on the Key Peninsula
on Saturday afternoon, wounding three strangers, was charged today with
two counts of first-degree attempted murder and one count of
first-degree assault.

Laura Sorenson pleaded not
guilty to the charges during her arraignment today in Pierce County
Superior Court. She is being held in the Pierce County Jail in lieu of
$1.5 million bail.

“There does not appear to be any understandable motive for this shooting,” Pierce County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist said in a news release. “The defendant said she didn’t even know the men she shot.”

According
to Lindquist, Sorenson walked into the Peninsula Market on Saturday
afternoon, pulled a revolver out of her purse and made a comment about
killing people. She fired until she was out of bullets, hitting three
men, he said.

The victims were a clerk, a developmentally disabled
man, and a 78-year-old man who was crouched down and hiding. Two of the
victims were hospitalized. One victim is in critical but stable
condition, Lindquist said.

Caffall's stepfather, Richard Weaver, told CBS station KHOU
that the suspected gunman refused to work after apparently quitting his
job less than a year ago. Weaver said Caffall regularly played video
games inside his rental home near the campus. According to KHOU,
Northcliff, the third man killed on Monday, was Caffall's landlord.

Weaver
told KHOU that Caffall played video games so much that it seemed to be
warping his sense of reality. He said Callfall's alleged violent
reaction to an eviction notice was not something that surprised him.
Weaver even told KHOU he had become concerned that Callfall might hurt,
or even kill, one of his own family members in recent months.

A Lewis County man will serve
more than a year in prison for the 2011 accidental shooting death of
another man, county officials said.

William Wesley Allen was found
guilty of the criminally negligent homicide of 38-year-old Patrick
Bennett after a two-day jury trial June 13-14, the Lewis County Herald reported. He pled guilty to an additional charge of hunting during a closed season.

Judy Bennett, the victim’s mother, told The Daily Herald her son died of a gunshot wound to the neck while turkey hunting in a wooded area on March 27, 2011.

Allen
was hunting with a child in the area when the incident occurred. He
told a jury he didn’t see Patrick Bennett through the trees, Judy
Bennett said.

Allen was sentenced Wednesday to serve 18 months in a
state prison for the charge of criminally negligent homicide. He was
also ordered to serve 30 days in the county jail for hunting in closed
season. The two sentences will be served concurrently, a county court
official said.

It's interesting how many negligent shooting stories we've seen among turkey hunters.

The Atlantic Wire published a fascinating article about how the gun-control movement might improve its approach. Basically, taking a cue from the marriage-equality movement, gun control folks need to mobilize some wealthy backers.

Which gets at what may be the most important difference between the
push for gay marriage and the push for more effective regulation of
guns: When gay-rights advocates achieved their marriage victory in New
York, they benefited from a relatively weak and poorly organized
opposition movement. That's a luxury that gun control advocates will
never have.

But if Bloomberg and other wealthy supporters of gun control were to
create a single-issue Super-PAC, seed it with $200 million, hire
experienced operatives to scare on-the-fence legislators and protect
rebels, the political fight with the N.R.A. would start looking a lot
fairer, fast.

Why do you think the gun-control folks haven't already done this? Wouldn't it be fairly easy to find a handful of super-rich supporters who could come up with a couple hundred million? I would imagine some of them would contribute big just to thwart the NRA.

Even though there are plenty of modern, less toxic alternatives
available, the National Rifle Association doesn’t want the EPA to
address lead hunting ammunition with new regulations.

The gun rights group earlier this month filed legal motions to try
and block the EPA from protecting wildlife and people from the effects
of poisonous lead hunting ammunition left the wild.

Paranoid as always, the group sees any attempt to regulate anything
to do with hunting as an attack on its misguided interpretation of the
U.S. Constitution.

By now, it’s clear that lead shot is not a good thing for the
environment. Nearly 500 scientific papers have documented the dangers to
wildlife from this kind of lead exposure.

A recent study by University of Santa Cruz California researchers
showed that lead is the leading cause of mortality in endangered
California condors. Many of the birds that have been released into the
wild have been recaptured and treated for lead poisoning.

Wouldn't moving away from lead be the right thing to do? It seems to me the NRA and its supporters are not interested in that at all. They have a knee-jerk reaction to anything that in any way might limit their "freedom" to do what they want.

Aren't there some pro-gun folks who are also environmentally conscious?

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

The rate of crime involving firearms is much lower in Canada than in the United States.

There are more than 30 times more firearms in the United States than in Canada. There
are an estimated 7.4 million firearms in Canada, about 1.2 million of
which are restricted firearms (mostly handguns). In the U.S., there are
approximately 222 million firearms; 76 million of the firearms in
circulation are handguns.

A much higherproportion of homicides in the United States involve firearms. For 1987-96, on average, 65% of homicides in the U.S. involved firearms, compared to 32% for Canada.

Firearm homicide rates are 8.1 times higher in the United States than in Canada. For 1987-96, the average firearm homicide rate was 5.7 per 100,000 in the U.S., compared to 0.7 per 100,000 for Canada.

Handgun homicide rates are 15.3 times higher in the United States than in Canada.
For 1989-95, the average handgun homicide rate was 4.8 per 100,000 in
the U.S., compared to 0.3 per 100,000 for Canada. Handguns were involved
in more than half (52%) of the homicides in the U.S., compared to 14%
in Canada.

Rates fornon-firearm homicides are nearly 2 times higher in the United States than in Canada.
For 1989-95, the average non-firearm homicide rate was 3.1 per 100,000
people in the U.S., compared to 1.6 per 100,000 for Canada.

A recent poll
from Mayors against Illegal Guns found that 74 percent of NRA gun
owners and 87 percent of non-NRA gun-owners support mandatory criminal
background checks in order to purchase a firearm. However, even with
this public support, there remain loopholes that allow 40% of gun
purchases to occur without a background check, with no questions asked.

You know what the most common pro-gun response to this suggestion is? "There is no such thing as the gun show loophole."

They figure the more time they can make us waste arguing about the terminology, the longer this blatant offense against common sense will continue. Maybe they're right. Progress certainly is slow in spite of the overwhelming agreement even among gun owners.

What's your opinion? Is it a genius tactic to argue for years about whether it should be called the "gun show loophole" or something else?

I prefer "private sale loophole," but since we all know what we're talking about, I object to all the obfuscation and diversion.

A man faced criminal charges after his 14-year-old nephew
accidentally used his weapon to injure two women at a family gathering
Saturday night.

Brian Ariel Bazan, 29, was comparing hunting firearms with one of his
cousins when Bazan’s nephew got a hold of a .45-caliber handgun, said a
witness who refused to give a name.

The 14-year-old grabbed the gun, fired once and injured two women. The single projectile struck a 19-year-old in the upper
chest, went through her back and struck a 45-year-old in the leg.

Investigators do not believe it was the child’s intent to harm his
two relatives, but a McAllen municipal judge charged him with deadly
conduct, a Class A misdemeanor, and transferred him to the custody of
the Hidalgo County Juvenile Detention Center.

Bazan also faced misdemeanor Class A charges for making the firearm
accessible to his nephew, Morales said. A judge issued him a $3,000
personal recognizance bond.

That sounds like the responsible adult gun owner gets less of a punishment than the kid. Going to juvie is no joke for a 14-year-old, but a misdemeanor gun charge is.

“The United States should stop producing so many weapons, which cause
us so much harm. That country also suffers from so much violence, as
billions of dollars go into manufacturing guns.”

That
is the message that anti-crime activist Fernando Ocegueda will take to
the public in the United States, during a one-month visit to that
country by the Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity, made up of 70 family members of victims of violence in Mexico.

“We
are feeling hopeless because we are ignored,” said Ocegueda, who sells
electronic goods. “Our mission is to raise awareness about the
indiscriminate sales of (assault) weapons, which flow over the border
into our country, where they generate so much violence.”

It's embarrassing when we have to be told by someone outside the country. We should be telling ourselves this.
Of course, we are doing exactly that. We are telling ourselves that the gun manufacturers are producing more guns than can possible be absorbed within our country by legitimate buyers. They know a certain amount of their production goes quickly into criminal hands.

And to make matters worse, they pay the NRA and the gun lobby handsomely to keep it that way.

These are some of the most disreputable businesses in the country. It's important that we strrive to bring greater awareness to this problem.

Monday, August 13, 2012

It's going to be fun to see the reaction from the gunloons once they realise that Heller-McDonald may have been more of a Pyrrhic victory than they realise. Mostly because they ignored this bit from the oral argument:

MR. GURA: Well, my response is that the government can ban arms that are
not appropriate for civilian use. There is no question of that.
JUSTICE KENNEDY: That are not appropriate to –
MR. GURA: That are not appropriate to civilian use.
JUSTICE GINSBURG: For example?
MR. GURA: For example, I think machine guns: It’s difficult to imagine a
construction of Miller, or a construction of the lower court’s opinion,
that would sanction machine guns or the plastic, undetectable handguns
that the Solicitor General spoke of.

And neglect that Scalia said:

Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.

It's been my contention that these decisions were intended as a way of slowly breaking the bad news that even though it's an "individual right" that term is pretty meaningless when it comes down to the ownership and possession of deadly weapons.

The U.S. courts of appeals for the Third, Sixth and Eighth circuits
have all said, in so many words, no right exists to have a machine
gun. You can add the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to the
list.

In affirming the conviction of Alaskan Matthew Wayne Henry for possessing a homemade machine gun Thursday, the Ninth Circuit held:

We agree with the reasoning of our sister circuits that
machine guns are “dangerous and unusual weapons” that are not protected
by the Second Amendment. An object is “dangerous” when it is “likely to
cause serious bodily harm.” Black’s Law Dictionary 451 (9th ed. 2009).
Congress defines “machinegun” as “any weapon which shoots, is designed
to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than
one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the
trigger.” 26 U.S.C. § 5845(b). The machine gun was first widely used
during World War I, where it “demonstrated its murderously effective
firepower over and over again.” William Rosenau, Book Note, The Origins
of the First Modern Weapon, TECH. REV., Jan. 1987, at 74, (reviewing
John Ellis, The Social History of the Machine Gun (1986). A modern
machine gun can fire more than 1,000 rounds per minute, allowing a
shooter to kill dozens of people within a matter of seconds. See George
C. Wilson, Visible Violence, 12 NAT’L J. 886, 887 (2003). Short of
bombs, missiles, and biochemical agents, we can conceive of few weapons
that are more dangerous than machine guns.

Oh dear. What could be worse? Perhaps the head of the UK's National Rifle Association saying that US Gun Loons are crazy:

In late October 2011, the Republican Party of Virginia sent out a
cartoon-drawn Halloween card. Reminiscent of Michael Jackson’s
“Thriller,” the card portrayed in one section mindless zombies in
lockstep, shouting out “O–Bama;” other sections had ghoulish depictions
of Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama with a bullet hole in his head. On June
17, 2012, the Helena, Montana Independent Record reported that the
Republican Party of Idaho’s convention hosted Rush Limbaugh as guest
speaker. Outside the convention hall there was an outhouse. A sign
declared it to be “Obama’s Presidential Library”; it too was riddled
with bullet holes, and inside the outhouse hung the president’s “birth
certificate” as well as scrawled messages regarding the sexual
availability of Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Nancy Pelosi. In
both cases, Republican Party spokespersons downplayed these incidents as
minor infringements of good taste.

What is going on here? These are uncertain times, but it is worth
asking: When, in presidential politics, is it okay to create hate?

I don't think this type of attitude and action can be explained by overly-exuberant politics.

I believe whenever we encounter inexplicable Obama hate, the reason is racism.

Updated by popular demand from the original tongue-in-cheek post which read like this:

In accordance with newly enacted legislation, the gun owner will
permanently forfeit his right to own guns, spend 10 days in jail and
report to a probation officer for 10 years, submitting to regular and
random home inspections, to ensure compliance. The new law signed by
the governor earlier this week is called the "one strike you're out gun
law." Supporters are optimistic that this year alone thousands of lives
and millions of dollars will be saved.

What I'd like to clarify is exactly to whom this sanction should apply. The simple answer is anyone who does anything wrong with a gun.

1. dropped gun
2. negligent discharge
3. improperly stored weapon in the hands of a child
4. improperly stored weapon stolen
5. brandishing
6. lost gun7. bringing a gun to the airport because you forgot you had it

Obviously, each of these can have a wide range of consequences and should not all result in the same exact punishment. A judge would have discretion concerning the appropriate jail time, fines, etc., but the forfeiture of gun rights is not up for bargain.

Griffin
is a 16-year veteran of the Tunica Sheriff's Department. He was leading
the Emergency Response Team, Tunica's equivalent of SWAT, when his gun
went off by mistake.

"He accidentally slipped and he had his
hand, his rifle in his hand. It was an M-16 and he said his reflexes
kicked in and he automatically grabbed something and his finger pulled
the trigger," says his wife Angela. She says the bullet caused too much
damage to his leg for doctors to save it.

You know who has "accidents," tripping by accident, pulling the trigger by accident, people who are clumsy, people who are distracted, people who are ill-prepared.

Leaders of Swat teams and any other person entrusted with a firearm cannot afford to be like that. If they are, number one, they should take responsibility for their actions and stop calling it an "accident." Number two, they should relinquish their right to own and use guns in the future. No second chances.

Does that sound too severe? Is it too unforgiving? Well, ask yourself why not? Why not be severe and unforgiving when dealing with gun handling?

Let's take Officer Griffin, for example. Do you think in his 16-year-career, this is the very first time he's had an "accident." I doubt it. People who are distracted and clumsy and ill-prepared have frequent instances of "accidents," usually not with the dramatic results as this one.

According to a 2011 report by the gun control advocacy group, Mayors
Against Illegal Guns, Oklahoma lags behind other states in supplying
mental health records to the national database used for these types of
background checks. Though federal law attempts to motivate states to
submit these records to the National Instant Criminal Background Check
System (NICS), Oklahoma has only sent three mental health records since
2009, the group reported.

This is the disgraceful situation that happens in many states. Although I don't believe the NRA can be blamed directly for this, they aren't actively orchestrating the bureaucratic mess that allows this to happen, they aren't doing anything to help either. They aren't spending any of their money to lobby for changes. They're sitting back and just watching like everybody else.

The funny thing is, this may be the very thing that tips the scales of public opinion eventually. Allowing mentally unstable people to purchase guns as freely as they do guarantees an increased number of the headline-grabbing mass shootings that we've seen lately.

Sooner or later, the general public which is mainly apathetic about gun rights, will become sufficiently outraged to demand changes.

The Second Amendment is dead — a victim of its
own making. It has been killed over and over again. It’s been dying
since the mass murders at the University of Texas Clock Tower, 101
California in San Francisco, McDonalds in San Diego, Columbine, Virginia
Tech, Trolley Square, Fort Hood Army Base, and now Aurora, Colo. It
only remains to be declared DOA and repealed — plain and simple.

If we add up all the sorrow, injury,
disability, terror, and death caused by guns in this country, compared
with the good that personally owned guns have proven to be since 1776,
there cannot be any other conclusion. On this one, the Founding Fathers
might have had an initial idea, based on their active revolt from the
British, and the need for everyone to have a single-shot, barrel-loaded
gun at the ready, just in case.

But this gradually disappeared, as a need for
the populace to grab a gun and overthrow the oppressors became no longer
valid. The chances of this type of "defense of freedom" uprising
happening today is not only slim but none. The Communists, North
Koreans, Nazis, and various comic-book villains, are not coming for us.

Two hundred years of experiencing this
constitutional mistake should be enough to end this death-causing, not
freedom-protecting, clause. The self-protection aspect of this thing is
incredibly weak — just ask Trayvon Williams in Florida. In the past
month alone, we saw two infants shoot themselves in the head and die
from guns owned by their grandfather and father, respectively.

I'm not convinced repeal is what's needed. I've always thought, sooner or later, the citizens of the US will wake up to the obvious and relegate the 2nd Amendment to the scrapheap of irrelevance.

All licensed dealers do check your criminal history and it usually only takes a few minutes, said Mike Reber of Arizona Arms.

However,
private dealers, people who sell their individual guns to buyers at gun
shows, don't have to perform such a check as long as they're
"reasonably sure you're not a felon," Reber told ABC15.

Reber has a booth this weekend at the "Crossroads of the West Gun Show" in Glendale, and is expecting a large turnout.

While the gun owners and gun sellers are offering facile inane bullshit like "if guns kill people how does anyone come out of a gun show alive?" the NRA and the gun lobby is spending millions to keep the lax laws the way they are.

For years we've been hearing ridiculous arguments justifying the private-sale loophole, and what's been done? Nothing.